Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-12-31
CITRUS FRUITS AND NORTHERN CULT
IVhTI0N

The Los Angeles Express, commenting
upon the Reconnaissance reflections con-
corning the proof the Oroville and Placer
citrus exhibits make of the climatic con-
ditions and productive capacity Of Central
and Northern California, says:
The REcoRD-USIoS thinks the newspapers of
this section have heretofore misrepTesented
Northern California IN this matter, and to this
is due the failure of the tenderfoot TO believe
that that part of the State is good place 70
start an orange orchard. 1t thinks there should
be no more jealousy or misrepresentation on the
part OF either section. Its conclusion, OF course,
is that Southern California ought to admit that
Northern California is suited to the production
of citrus fruits with profit.
The REcoRD-UHIoY is prepared to stand
by its assertion. We have said that this
section has raised, and does, citrus fruits
for market at profit, and we repeat it.
In fact the San Francisco and Sacramento
markets are to-day supplied with oranges
mainly grown in this section, and the first
of the season in the San Francisco market
were from the foothilI region east of us,
and they went in, by the way, six weeks
earlier than it is possible for southern
growers to ship. The Express further says
We will need better evidence than has as yet
been presented in order TO believe that citrus
fruit raising t. any considerable extent can be
made profitable in Northern California. In the
first pla. if it can be done why has it not been
done? Northern California has been settled up
for much longer period than have the citrus
sections of Southern California. Numberless
experiments at citrus fruit growing have been
made there. And yet, while San Bernardino
county alone has been shipping from zoe to
] 500 carloads of oranges year. all Northern
California has not, TO our knowledge, shipped
dozen carloads year.
We are unaware of what character of
testimony is necessary to convince the
average Southern California newspaper of
the truth of any claim. We do know
what would be required to establish the
truth in the mind of an impartial man.
If citrus fruits, it is asked, can be raised
with profit in Central and Northern Cali
fornia, why has it not been done?" But
it has been and is done. In the very arti-
Gle that inspires the comments OF the
Express, the RECoRD-UNIoN said
Within three years we have held three citrus
fairs in midwinter, and shown by ocular dem n
stration thai we can and do grow, besides all
kinds of dCciduous fruits, the orange, lemon
hibits was sent last winter to Chicago and put
upon public view in that city. During the
orange season we have shipped to the East the
first marketable California oranges and in the
Eastern market they have been accepted as of
high grade. We have commenced orange-grove
planting For grain and deciduous fruit-grow-
ing having absorbed our attention heretofore
the cultivation of citrus fruits has been
neglected; indeed. until a comparatively re-
cent date has been with but an avocation,
and the trees cared for only as objects of orna.
ment But the intelligent observer realizes that
the failure TO avail ourselves of climatic capac-
ity in the past is not proof of lack of that ca
pacity. Now, however citrus fruit cultivation
for commerce has been largely entered upon in
Central and Northern California, and the pro-
duct is regularly quoted in distant markets,
while we respond TO about all the demands of
home consumption.
We distinctly remember when citrus
fruit culture was not engaged in in South
em California as commercial venture of
any magnitude, and when the chief pro-
ducts of that section were hides, horns and
hoofs, and an Indifferent quality of grapes.
If citrus fruits could then, as now, have
been largely raised at the south for profit,
"why was it not done?"
The well-informed concerning agrcult-
ural California-and thereby we mean the
great central and northern valleys and the
foothills adiacent-know that the l..story
of industry ard production in this State
has been marked by three distinct periods.
First, when gold mining in the nou.tains
was the chief attraction, and no one
dreamed of wheat fields and orchards in
valley or foothiiI, or concerned themselves
whatever about the productive character of
the soil, further than to notice that it grew
wild oats and maintained wild bullocks
Then came the period when it dawncd
upon Californiaus that it was not necessary
to continue to bring -four from Chile, and
that were other possible products to Cali
forna than beef, hides and tallow And
so the growing of grains upon an extensive
scale began; the plains were redeemed
from grazing, and wildcat crops and the
fore never felt the plowshare, and that
Caliiornians had not, therefore, cared to
test. Wheat and barley growing became
the great vocations, comparatively little
attention being given to either fruit or
vine culture.
The third era Of production dawned
when wheat farming having outgrown the
progress of the State, attention was turned
to horticulture, and the cultivation of the
grape. In this latter period it was noticed
that orange and lemon trees, set ont long
before for purposes of ornamentation only,
fiourished and bore generously, and later ii
was discovered that the olive was capable
of cultivation in the northern section, and
that the almond was possible of production
for profit.
Even at this time citrus fruit-growing
in Southern California had not progressed
beyond the production of seedlings, no at
tention had been given to improving va
rieties and very little to orange-grove cult
ure. The success attending subsequent
advancement in cultivation at the south.
awakened the north TO the fact that if
citrus fruit trees would thrive in most OF
the region from Tehama to Calaveras, and
hNui 4'apd 10 ldCSr, is ornaments 10
lawns, they would, multiplied, yield
abundantly for market Then began what
may be termed the era of northern citrus |
fruit culture, in which we are in fact but
Just launched
1t appears to have escaped the attention |
of the Express that the claim of Northern
California has been of climatic advantages
and desirahility, and that the growth of
citrus fruits here has been cited as evil
dence of the character of the climate |
rather than rs an invitationsto engage in
the cultivation of such fruits fer profit
since the cultivation of deciduous fruits
which the central and northern regions
supply SO largely to the south, and which
it cannot successfully grow, is so much
more profitable and commands speedier
and better market But by the testimony
of the orange, the misrepresentation con-
corning climatic conditions having been